We began by asking how people had fared
financially over the past five years. Their answers show all too
clearly that it has been a hard, even depressing period for the people
of southern Africa. Drought, cutbacks in the mining industry and
economic gloom were lightened only by the political triumph in South
Africa. Many reported that they had become worse off financially in
this (Figure 1). This was true even in Botswana where the economy has
grown rapidly, but where employment has not.
Lesotho respondents were the most negative on every score, especially
the elderly living in rural areas, a pattern that was repeated
elsewhere. Women also tended to take a more gloomy view of their
situation. To a considerable extent this was a rural effect: there are
usually more women in rural areas than men, partly because women live
longer and partly because men leave to find work.
The exception was Zimbabwe: only 24 per cent of those living in rural
areas reported that their financial situation had deteriorated in the
past five years compared to 38 per cent of those in towns. One should
not over-emphasise these differences: it remains the case that huge
majorities of all groups in Zimbabwe were discontented. But in all the
other countries rural dwellers were far more discontented than urban
dwellers: even levels of rural discontent equal to those found in the
towns would have been striking.
Only Swazis and black South Africans bucked the trend of feeling worse
off. The latter actually suffered rising unemployment and
disappointment of their hopes but their post-liberation euphoria
overcame these material failings. Swaziland had the most sanguine
population. Even here more women, older age groups and, above all,
traditional hut dwellers (the hard core of the rural group) felt they
had fared badly over the past five years. The overall positive view
derived entirely from men, the young and people living in towns. This
was an early indication of the significance of the gender divide.
When we broadened the subject to ask whether there had been
improvement or deterioration in the “general economic wealth of people
around you” and whether “life as a whole was worse or better”,
significant differences emerged (Figures 2 and 3). In Swaziland,
Namibia, Botswana and Zambia the largest single group consisted of
those who thought there had been some improvement. Many of these
respondents, while feeling that their own situation had deteriorated,
conceded that at least others had benefited. This was particularly
striking in Botswana — to such a degree, indeed, that some reluctance
to admit an improvement in their personal situation might have been
operating. Lesotho respondents remained massively negative, while in
Zimbabwe the number of those believing things had got much worse was
the largest single group in the population.
When we asked about “life as a whole” the malaise gripping Lesotho and
Zimbabwe was extremely apparent (Figure 3). In the latter case 39 per
cent of all respondents said life as a whole had got much worse. This
figure rose to 43 per cent among men, 47 per cent among urban dwellers
and 51 per cent among the unemployed. Clearly, President Mugabe faces
an urban population longing for change. The relatively high degree of
satisfaction felt by many Swazis was again striking, though with rural
dwellers remaining firmly negative, while Botswanans were far more
discontented than we might have predicted.
Asked how they thought their households would fare over the next five
years (Figure 4) a completely different picture emerged, with euphoric
expectation in Zimbabwe (and South Africa) and gloom everywhere else.
The euphoria in South Africa was clearly part of the post-liberation
honeymoon and was an exclusively African phenomenon. Whites were
extremely pessimistic about the future and Coloureds and Indians fairly
neutral. More surprising was the giddy expectation of better things to
come in Zimbabwe. It is tempting to see these hopes mainly as an
expression of longing for change. In that case we would expect the
groups who felt so negative about the present to be the ones who felt
most positive about the future, but this was not so. The discontented
urban dwellers were no more optimistic than average about the future.
The most optimistic were those aged over 50 and those on low incomes.
Those on higher incomes were the only ones to be sceptical of such high
hopes.
In Lesotho, Zambia and Botswana people thought that present conditions
would continue or perhaps improve slightly. But in Namibia and
Swaziland there was a complete collapse of confidence in the future. In
the former, the extreme pessimists were concentrated in two distinct
groups. First, the rural poor, especially those who lived in
traditional huts: 61 per cent expected things to get worse, against
only 10 per cent who thought they would get better. Second, those with
higher education: 50 per cent expected deterioration and 6 per cent
improvement. Women were also noticeably more pessimistic than
men.
The most striking case of all was Swaziland, where optimism about the
present gave way to massive pessimism about the future. This must be
due to the great uncertainty Swazis feel about the approaching showdown
between the king and the radical forces of the People’s United
Democratic Movement (Pudemo) and the trade unions, a potentially
revolutionary situation. The king’s loyalists — concentrated among the
older, less educated and lower paid — were still doggedly confident
about the future. But the younger, better educated and higher income
groups were particularly gloomy.
The people’s verdict on the record of their governments was damning
(Figure 5). With one exception, only a tiny group in each country, and
in Lesotho nobody at all, believed that government had fulfilled its
promises . Even in Botswana, where rapid economic growth has allowed
large-scale social and educational expenditure by government, 57 per
cent thought the government had carried out few or none of its
promises. The country’s growth has been extremely narrowly based on a
handful of extractive industries, with unemployment in other sectors
rising as high as 30-40 per cent. The lesson seems to be that failure
to stop unemployment from rising may undo everything else in the
end.
Only in Namibia were there substantial numbers of satisfied citizens.
Those most likely to declare themselves satisfied were the classic
African nationalist categories: the “struggle” generation (now aged
35-49), urban dwellers, the better educated and Ovambo speakers. Given
that the actual performance of the Nujoma government has been no more
successful than that of its neighbours, their satisfaction is most
likely an expression of loyalty to Swapo. However, as we saw earlier,
this seems to have broken down when they contemplated the future.
In South Africa, despite their high hopes, people were far less likely
to applaud government performance after only two and a half years of
ANC government than Namibians were after seven of Swapo rule. On this
and a number of other questions both African nationalism and the
symbolic power of liberation appeared stronger in Namibia than anywhere
else. This is not surprising for liberation in Namibia had a double
impact: it meant not only the ending of white minority rule, as in
South Africa, but also decolonisation after a century of brutal rule,
first by Germany and then by South Africa. And Swapo is built on a hard
core of Ovambo support, reinforcing liberation euphoria with an ethnic
coherence and solidity.
In Swaziland we found a massive expression of discontent with the
ruling monarchy. An overwhelming 76 per cent thought it had fulfilled
few or none of its promises compared to only 21 per cent who thought
the government had fulfilled at least some of its promises — a 55 per
cent gap. This gap was even greater among those aged over 50, among
men, among those with only primary education and people living in
traditional huts.
Despite this low opinion of their governments’ records of delivery, we
still found high levels of party loyalty. In every country large
numbers said they would stand by their political organisation and its
leaders even if they disagreed with many of its policies and actions
(Figure 6). In 1996, when we found that 40 per cent of South African
respondents took this view (with exactly the same number of Africans
and non-Africans doing so) it was easy to believe that this was a
feature of early post-liberation politics. But only in Lesotho were the
figures lower and even there 46 per cent of those with only primary
education expressed unconditional support for their parties and
leaders. The power of such attachments to party cannot be explained by
the pragmatic benefits that a Western voter might hope to obtain in an
election. Especially in the struggle against white domination or
apartheid, parties often became the receptacles for the hopes and
aspirations of African voters who saw them as nothing less than agents
of national and personal redemption. Their parties’ actual policies and
performance are less significant than this symbolic delivery.
Several different forces may explain the phenomenon. Botswana, which
emerged as the most extreme case of follow-my-leader politics, has a
particularly deferential and consensus-seeking culture. But whatever
they chose to tell our interviewers Botswanans have been giving a
steadily rising vote to the opposition BNP in elections. Their
behaviour flatly contradicts the notion of blind obedience to parties
and leaders. In this case we may not have been measuring political
opinion so much as deferential attitudes and a strong inclination to
express a community consensus at any given moment.
This sentiment of unconditional support for leaders and parties quite
probably stems from traditional patterns of behaviour towards the
authority of chiefs. A chief is someone you respect and support simply
because he is the chief. Even during the worst of the fighting between
the Inkatha Freedom Party and ANC in KwaZulu-Natal — a period when the
Zulu king was clearly aligned with the IFP — Zulu ANC activists never
wavered in their support for the king. It seems possible that these and
similar attitudes have merely been transposed onto the modern body
politic. When we asked people about their views on traditional leaders
there was broad agreement that chiefs must be retained; abolitionist
sentiment was very much a minority view. The main division of opinion
lay between those countries (Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Botswana) where
large majorities wanted chiefs to retain their present powers or even
be strengthened and those (Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa) where
majorities wanted less powerful chiefs or even to abolish them.
Opposition to strong chiefs was greatest in Swaziland. Here the
continuing role of traditional leadership, in the person of the king,
is at the centre of political debate.
If people are prepared to stand by their party even if they disagree
with its actions and policies and it fails to keep its promises when in
power, what happens if it loses an election? We asked people if they
would want the party they supported to accept electoral defeat and
leave government or if they would support its attempts to stay in
power. The answers (Figure 7) were at least partially reassuring:
except in Namibia large majorities said they would accept their party’s
defeat. Yet substantial minorities in every country felt otherwise,
including 30 per cent of respondents in Botswana — a worrying sign
given that the governing party’s willingness to step down may well be
tested at the next election.
People were rather less confident that the parties themselves would
accept electoral defeat and hand over power peacefully. Only in Zambia
did a clear majority believe that all parties would accept defeat,
despite the fact that President Chiluba went to extreme lengths to
“manage” the 1997 election, disqualifying several of the leading
Opposition contenders from running at all. To test opinion on this
crucial question we asked people to choose between four options:
- Opposition parties should join the largest party and form a single, united government
- A co-operative Opposition that does not criticise too much
- A strong Opposition that subjects government to tough criticism
- Opposition parties should not exist at all
Public opinion across the region proved
rather more appreciative of the democratic rights of Opposition than
many of the governments in power. President Mugabe argued long and hard
for a one-party state, but only 27 per cent of Zimbabweans took this
view. In Swaziland, where the king has only recently permitted
political parties, a mere 22 per cent thought Opposition parties should
not exist. The most eloquent testimony came from Zambia and Lesotho:
these states with the longest experience of Opposition being banned
registered the fewest in favour of this option. When we simplified this
picture, measuring those who wanted a strong Opposition against those
who wanted either no Opposition or a weak, co-operative one, the
results were less encouraging (Figure 8). Only in Zambia and Botswana
(and among South Africans as a whole, though not among black South
Africans) did more respondents favour a vigorous opposition. Those who
emphasise that there was no place for an Opposition in traditional
African society would no doubt claim that this picture is nearer the
truth.
Citizens may want to see a formal Opposition, but it will mean little
if they themselves do not feel free to express their opinions. We asked
them how difficult or easy it would be to live in their neighbourhood
if their political views were different from those of most other
people. We first used this question in pre-election surveys in South
Africa in 1993-94. Then very substantial numbers of people — often a
third or more of all respondents, though with significant regional
variations — said that they felt that it would be difficult or
impossible to live in such circumstances. Such results seemed a
distressing but not wholly surprising feature of pre-election South
Africa, haunted as it was by high levels of anxiety, intimidation and
violence.
When we posed the same question across the six other countries in the
latest survey, however, we found that such pressures were quite
generally felt. Indeed, the results (Figure 9) present an alarming
picture. Across the region a majority answered that it would be
difficult or impossible to live in their neighbourhood if their
political views differed from those of most other people. How can an
Opposition party appeal to voters if most of them live in an atmosphere
in which they do not dare disagree with majority opinion? The two
countries undergoing political crises at the time of the survey —
Swaziland and Lesotho — had the highest numbers saying it was
impossible to live in their neighbourhood in such circumstances. Their
replies show that as the political temperature rises so do these
constraints.
Everywhere, the pattern was the same: those most likely to say that it
would be difficult or impossible to hold opinions different from those
of one’s neighbours were the old, rural dwellers, the poorer, the less
educated and women. In part this may be because old values of enforced
community consensus are most deeply inculcated among these groups; in
part it may be because they are more socially vulnerable and easier to
bully, but even more it is a matter of social confidence and
neighbourhood. Middle-class, white South Africans living in spacious
suburbs did not feel these pressures, though small town, rural
Afrikaners did.
People were not just frightened of their neighbours. Nowhere other
than in Namibia did a majority of citizens feel free to criticise their
government and most felt extremely fearful of what the consequences of
such an action might be. In the countries where discontent seemed to be
highest (Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland), the majority scared to
criticise openly was of the order of 3:1 or even 4:1, suggesting an
entire culture of constraint and anxiety. Such constraints constitute a
huge obstacle to democracy both now and to the development of a
democratic culture in the future.
A genuinely free and independent press willing and able to criticise
the government of the day without fear would help redress the balance,
but all too often it has been absent in independent African states.
African politicians sometimes claim that the public at large does not
wish to see the press spread disrespect for the government. Despite the
deference towards authority that our survey found, respondents
expressed an altogether welcome degree of support for a free press
(Figure 10). We asked whether the press ought to:
- Support the government whenever it can
- Praise or criticise the government as it sees fit
- Watch for mistakes in government and be critical
The largest group in every single state
wanted a press that praises or criticises without fear or favour,
though in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa a significant bloc would
like to see the press support the government. The more the survey moved
into better educated and urban groups, the stronger was the support for
a critical press. This is a highly significant finding since it is only
in the urban areas that respondents would have had regular access to
newspapers. Clearly this had given them a taste for a critical press.
In many countries support for a toughly critical press was strongest
among those who were afraid to criticise government and those who felt
that it was difficult or impossible to live in neighbourhoods where
they held different political views from the majority. It is difficult
to find a better justification for press criticism than the fact that
these, the most bullied citizens, least able to speak out for
themselves, most wanted the press to speak out for them.
With such strong pressures for community consensus, individual human
rights may suffer. We asked whether the police should be able to put
anyone in jail without trial and, if so, to whom such measures should
be applied. Even in countries that have often trampled upon this key
individual right, huge majorities everywhere were more liberal than
their governments in their attachment to habeas corpus (Figure11). And
where people answered affirmatively, further questioning made it clear
that they favoured this measure only in the case of rapists, armed
robbers and murderers. A partial exception was Namibia, the only
country where a substantial number did favour jail without trial. Forty
per cent of those who did so refused to say who should be subject to
such measures, perhaps an indication that their political opponents or
other non-criminal “offenders” were intended. A positive opinion on
this matter was linked with authoritarian attitudes in other spheres,
such as a dislike of multi-party democracy or of too much criticism of
government. Those who felt most cowed by such social forces were also
more likely to express authoritarian views themselves.
To probe these attitudes further, we asked people to choose between
two descriptions of democracy:
- Democracy means consulting everyone so that a consensus can be reached between all people. This means one can then proceed on the basis of full public agreement and complete national unity;
- Democracy means letting all opinions and interests compete and contend against one another. One may never reach a consensus, but the important thing is that there should be free and vigorous debate.
Surprisingly, in every single state there were majorities who favoured
the pluralist view of democratic rights over the community consensus
version (Figure 12a and Figure 12b). Zambia was the most narrowly
divided, but even there over one third agreed strongly with the
pluralist view while only 11 per cent agreed equally strongly with the
community consensus view. To be sure many respondents retreated into
“don’t knows” particularly in Lesotho where, it would appear, almost
every type of political debate was haunted by anxiety and
difficulty.
In general, as we might have expected, the pluralist view of
democratic rights favouring vigorous debate over consensus was
particularly strong among the younger, better educated and higher
earning groups. To that extent the adoption of individualist values and
the doctrine of individual rights is part of the transition from an
older African system of authority based on the community to a more
modern liberal democratic dispensation. Rejection of the old world and
acceptance of the new are, indeed, directly linked. In Zimbabwe, for
example, nearly two thirds of those who wanted to abolish chiefs were
in favour of individual rights. Once again we found the opposite in
Lesotho where the better educated were more in favour of community
consensus than the less well educated. It is the better educated who
have benefited from Lesotho’s independence and who must now feel their
position threatened by the collapse of a sense of community and
statehood there.
Still, the overwhelming popular majorities we found on this issue
should lead one to a lively suspicion of African politicians who
continue to insist on ubuntu (a natural community-mindedness) and the
indecency of anything other than complete black unity or national
unity. Their electorates have already moved away from such notions and
will probably continue to do so. Everything suggests that this strong
sense of community-reinforced consensus that typically underlies
one-party and dominant party states depends on social pressure,
intimidation and downright authoritarianism, at the cost of
considerable public anxiety and fear.
Nowhere in the region did a majority feel very confident when we asked
if they thought that democracy had been firmly established in their
country and that truly free elections will be held. (In Swaziland we
asked “How confident do you feel that democracy will be established and
that truly free elections will be held?”) Zambia, despite its political
travails, showed the highest degree of confidence. Clearly the
transition from single party rule that President Kaunda finally agreed
to (and lived to regret) has had extremely positive effects upon public
opinion. In Namibia, Swapo loyalists were the most likely to say that
they were very confident, but not much more than one third of
respondents felt confident of democracy’s future. The substantial
number of those who replied “don’t know” should probably be counted as
holding negative views since they refused both the options allowing
them to express confidence in democracy. Sadly, in Botswana, with a
generation’s experience of successful democracy, only 28 per cent felt
very confident of the future of their democracy — a lower figure than
that encountered in a number of other countries with less reason for
optimism. Opinion in Zimbabwe was also very evenly balanced with not
much more than a quarter feeling confident of their country’s
democratic future. Once again, Lesotho and Swaziland ranked at the
bottom of the list in terms of confidence.
Finally, we asked which types of people voters thought had benefited
most from the end of colonial rule. The answers were emphatic. A large
majority in every country believed that the benefits of independence
had flowed to the better educated and, to some extent, to those in
business, to those with new jobs in government and, most of all, to
politicians and those close to them. This is no doubt an accurate
reflection of social realities. After only two and a half years in
office, the ANC government in South Africa was already beginning to
attract such answers itself, though relatively few there were yet
willing to say that politicians had benefited the most. Judging by the
results elsewhere we must expect the number of South African
respondents citing this category to grow rapidly over time. Almost no
one in South Africa believed that foreigners working in the country
were major beneficiaries, but large numbers elsewhere did. In South
Africa foreigners were clearly thought of as being destitute immigrants
from Mozambique and elsewhere. In the rest of the region foreigners
were thought of as white settlers or development experts and other
contract workers from international agencies.
The overwhelming fact was that very few of the people we interviewed
believed that the mass of ordinary people — the promised beneficiaries
of independence and liberation — really had gained the most.
Focus 9, January 1998. This article is an edited extract of the full
survey report, which can be purchased from the Helen Suzman
Foundation.
